NARUTO:The sealed shinobi.

Kakashi sighed and shut his book, "Naruto, Kirigakure is home to some of the best sensor ninja in the Elemental Nations. If we tried that and were caught it could cause a war between our villages. And with both of our countries being weakened by war so recently it would leave us open to attack from one of the more opportunistic villages elsewhere. Basically, blatant, flat-out espionage like what you're suggesting would start the next great war."

Naruto sweatdropped and looked away, "Point taken. So why are we going to Kiri again?"

Kakashi eye-smiled at Naruto, "Well the new Mizukage is instituting something of an open-door policy to the village until everything is back on the up and up. Mostly so that immigrants and others that Kiri will need to help rebuild and regain some stability can enter the area easily. It's a pretty double-edged sword."

Tayuya chuckled, "Orochi-teme didn't have that kind of thing going for Oto, that's for damn sure. Not particularly the most pleasant place ever fucking devised."

Naruto smirked, 'Oh I know.' Naruto met Tayuya's eyes as the two of them shared a silent laugh with one another.

Shikamaru rolled his shoulder with one arm, "So what exactly are we looking for? I think Naruto is kind of right. If we get caught looking around where we shouldn't we can get busted, and I don't think chunin level ninja get diplomatic immunity. You might Kakashi-sensei because you're a jounin, but the rest of us are screwed if this goes south."

Kakashi nodded, "True, which is why we are really trolling for secrets or anything. Just a basic layout of the land. Like I said, any reliable information on Kiri at all, even if it's just an estimation of how big the village is, would be useful."

Shikamaru sighed in realization, "So you're basically saying that we're supposed to be tourists?"

Kakashi chided Shikamaru's dismissal of his role, "Ah, ah, ah. The word you want to use is 'diplomats' Shikamaru."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, "Fine, we're here to be 'diplomats' then?"

Naruto laughed at Shikamaru's expression, 'Yeah, you guys are meant to be tourists. I'm here for the real deal. Ero-sennin said that Kirigakure was the birthplace of Akatsuki. How else would I be able to find out anything about them? I'll be damned if just sit pretty and wait for them to come to me.'

"Alright everyone, ship up, we'll be at Kiri within the hour." Kakashi snapped his book shut, "All of you, these people are going to be on edge. Shikamaru, keep an eye on everything. You're the smartest of the three of you and being able to piece together anything that seems off will be paramount. Tayuya, do not antagonize these people, they just spent the last several years fighting a war with their own people, a fresh foreign chunin would just piss them off. Naruto… make yourself scarce."

Naruto saluted Kakashi and shunshined out of the lineup. Tayuya and Shikamaru both had their jaws dropped as Kakashi walked along like nothing had happened at all.

Tayuya pointed at the spot where Naruto had stood just a moment ago, leaves signifying his past presence, "Wait. What the fuck just happened here?"

Shikamaru mumbled and followed after "Troublesome…"

Kakashi,

XxX (Six Hours Later – Kirigakure Hotel Room)

"Alright Kakashi, where the fuck did shithead go?" Tayuya hadn't calmed down since she walked into the village. Shikamaru had made sure to keep a body between himself and her at all times… Namely Kakashi's body, for self-preservation purposes, "Why did you split him off, it doesn't make any sense."

Shikamaru was standing by the door, "She's right. Why did he come all this way to Kiri just to bug out right before we got here? And why didn't you tell us?"

Kakashi was laying on the bed, little orange book in hand, '*sigh* My cute little chunin certainly don't like to leave things as they are do they?' Kakashi flipped a page and acted aloof as usual, "Naruto has an alternate objective from us that in truth really has absolutely nothing to do with Kiri at all. As long as I state that we have another coming in a few days we should be seeing him very soon. And if we don't, well I'm sure he'll reach us somehow."

Tayuya felt like grinding her teeth together, "But where did he go? He just up and left the moment you gave him the cue to go."

Shikamaru now had something else to think about, 'The way he up and left without a trace was way too smooth for a chunin, let alone a rookie chunin in his second year as a ninja. And secondary objectives? What kind of things are you into Naruto?'

Kakashi sighed as he saw the look of pondering on Shikamaru's face and decided to run damage control, "Fine. Naruto is on his way to Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves) as we speak." Kakashi clenched his teeth under his mask waiting for the outburst.

"WHAT?" Tayuya felt like strangling Kakashi now, "Why the fuck would you let him go off by himself to a whole nother country? Why the fuck is he even there in the first place?" Kakashi lowered his book and met Tayuya's gaze with one eye, locked on her seriously, "That is Naruto's business. If you need to know or if he wants you to know he'll tell you when we meet up again. Until then drop it and get ready to record what you see tomorrow."

"But-."

Kakashi's eye narrowed, "He'll be back before you know it. If anything happens to him I'll know."

XxX

(Two Days Later – Shores of Nami no Kuni)

"-and then they made me their king." Naruto finished to a group of sailors huddled around him. The grizzled seahands sat silently as the boy finished up his story, "It seems that all of the other animals in the Forest of Death really don't like those bastard spiders I told you about either. Those stupid things are actually the reason why everything in there is so damn vicious and oversized, they needed to be just to survive. They were absolutely delighted when they found out I'd been killing them for sport for months."

Naruto was starting to get unnerved by the stares from the bigger men, "Okay… well, I've got to go. Places to see and people to do, you know."

Naruto sighed under his breath as he left the ship, "Kami, sailors are weird…"

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